People wait in line for the Cleveland Career Fair in Independence, Ohio, Thursday. Recent federal numbers showed U.S. employers added 288,000 jobs in June, helping to decrease the unemployment rate.

WASHINGTON — U.S. employers accelerated their hiring last month, adding a robust 288,000 jobs and helping drive the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since September 2008.

It was the fifth straight monthly job gain above 200,000 — the best such stretch since the late 1990s tech boom. Over the past 12 months, the economy has added nearly 2.5 million jobs — an average of 208,000 a month, the fastest year-over-year pace since mid-2006.

Thursday’s jobs report from the Labor Department made clear that the U.S. economy is moving steadily closer to full health after having shrunk at the start of the year. Growth is picking up even as many major economies in Europe and Asia continue to struggle. On Thursday, the European Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged despite signs that the 18-country eurozone economy is losing momentum.

June’s healthy U.S. job growth followed additions of 217,000 jobs in May and 304,000 in April, figures that were both revised upward. Monthly job gains so far this year have averaged 230,833, up from 194,250 in 2013.

Investors appeared pleased by the news. When stock markets opened Thursday, an hour after the government released the jobs report, the Dow Jones industrial average traded above 17,000 for the first time. By late morning, the Dow had risen about 65 points.

The unemployment rate dipped in June from 6.3 percent in May to its lowest level since the financial crisis struck at full force in the fall of 2008 with the bankruptcy of the Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers.

“Since February, this has now become a textbook jobs expansion,” said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at the consultancy CohnReznick. “It is both broad and accelerating.”

Economists say the steady U.S. job gains should help fuel more purchases of goods from Asia and Europe and strengthen their economies at least slightly. Much of Europe is suffering from high unemployment. And China is trying to moderate its economy’s growth without slowing it too much.

“If we have some momentum going into the second half of the year, it helps the world economy because we’re big consumers,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services.

The U.S. job gains in June were widespread. Factories added 16,000 workers, retailers 40,200. Financial and insurance firms increased their payrolls by 17,000. Restaurants and bars employed 32,800 more people. Only construction, which gained a scant 6,000, appeared to reflect the slow recovery of previous years.

Job growth has averaged 272,000 over the past three months. In May, the economy surpassed its jobs total in December 2007, when the Great Recession officially began.

Still, researchers at the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimate that 6.7 million more jobs would have been needed to keep up with population growth.

The challenge is whether the job gains will pull more Americans back into the workforce and lift wages that have barely budged. Many people who lost jobs during the recession and were never rehired have stopped looking for work. Just 62.8 percent of adult Americans are working or are looking for a job, compared with 66 percent before the recession.

The number of long-term unemployed has dropped 1.2 million over the past year to just under 3.1 million. That’s half what it was three years ago. But the government data suggest that many long-term unemployed have given up their job searches — a trend that could create a drag on future U.S. growth.